House Freedom caucus offers a compromise on healthcare

President Trump and most of official Washington blames the House Freedom Caucus for the death of the American Health Care Act. There is some, but not complete, justification for this.

But the Freedom Caucus's top members have since laid out a clear path to passage of repeal and replace, and are showing a willingness to compromise. They have made a perfectly reasonable and prudent bid in the negotiation.

If the White House, Speaker Paul Ryan, and Republican centrists actually want to repeal and replace Obamacare, they should accept the Freedom Caucus's offer. If they reject it, it will demonstrate that they didn't mean it when they campaigned for election on a platform that included killing the 2010 law.
...
The Affordable Health Care Act repealed the employer mandate and the individual mandate. That's two of Obamacare's 12 mandates, by Meadows' count.

"The Freedom Caucus has asked for two [more] to be included in the repeal," Meadows said, "which would bring us to a total of four of the twelve Obamacare mandates. That's our ask: These Obamacare mandates repealed in exchange for Yes votes."

The Essential Health Benefits and "Community Ratings" are the two regulations the Freedom Caucus wants dead.
...

I am not persuaded that any of the Obamacare mandates are needed and doing away with all of them would give people the best chance of reducing the cost of health insurance. I don't think the supporters of Obamacare and the supported of the House repeal version that failed have made the case for keeping any of the mandates.

"It continues. Have seen gunships firing and heard much activity in the last few hours."...
The Iraqi claim is plausible. It is just the kind of thing that could be expected from ISIS forces. ISIS is in a desperate fight and appears willing to pull down all those around them as they lose.

Some injuries were reported and more than a dozen people were arrested after opposing sides clashed at dueling pro- and anti-Trump rallies, Berkeley, Calif., police said.
The liberals engage in projection by calling Trump supporters fascists, when it is in fact, their supporters who are sparking the violence in Califonia. There is a strain of intolerance for other points of view that is enforced by people dressed in black and their faces covered. They physically attack Trump supporters or other conservatives. These people may wear black but the are the Brownshirts of liberal fascism.

Fuel Fix:
OPEC producers took another 153,000 barrels a day off the market in March as part of its bid to drain the world’s oil glut.

In the cartel’s monthly report released Wednesday, independent sources reported the group of oil-producing countries has cut output by 1.1 million barrels a day since December.

Last month, Libya’s output dropped by nearly 9 percent, and production edged lower in the United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, Nigeria, Iran, Angola and other countries. Saudi Arabia raised production by 41,000 barrels a day.

That effort has pushed oil prices above $50 a barrel in recent months, breathing life into U.S. oil patches like the Permian Basin. U.S. crude rose 16 cents on Wednesday to $53.56 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, as traders reacted to media reports that Saudi Arabia, the cartel’s de facto leader, wants to see OPEC continue production cuts into the second half of this year.

But even as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries works to slow…